The Trump administration doesn’t appear to have a clear idea of just how many federal staffers they’ve let go.
During a rare emergency hearing on President’s Day, Judge Tanya Chutkan asked the government’s attorneys if they could confirm reports that thousands of federal employees had been fired over the weekend. But the Department of Justice lawyers could not answer.
“I have not been able to look into that independently or confirm that,” one government attorney said, reported MSNBC’s Adam Klasfeld.
That sent Chutkan reeling.
“The firing of thousands of federal employees is not a small or common thing,” she said incredulously, according to Klasfeld. “You haven’t been able to confirm that?”
Chutkan then went on to describe the actions of Elon Musk’s DOGE—an agency that has not been congressionally established or funded—as “unpredictable and scattershot,” according to LawFare senior editor Roger Parloff.
In the weeks since Donald Trump was inaugurated, DOGE has reportedly severed thousands of qualified employees from their positions in the federal government. The department has made a point to target probationary employees still within the first year of their roles—though the mass layoffs could potentially affect as many as 200,000 federal employees who fit that criteria.
“Musk hasn’t been appointed or confirmed,” Chutkan said, framing the lawsuit’s argument. “He’s been ‘tasked with’ this [job], all without congressional oversight.”
“That’s why I’m asking: will there be terminations? Where? When?” Chutkan said, according to Parloff.
But the government could only promise to circle back on the issue.
So far, Musk’s team has gained access to and gutted portions of the CDC, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Education, Commerce, Defense, and Energy Departments, the EPA, FEMA, NOAA, and, among other agencies, the Federal Aviation Administration, even as the nation experiences an unprecedented uptick in critical aviation crashes.
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